#umberclutch

Yesterday was the final session of our four year long Umberclutch D&D game. The whole party made it through! Although it was very close in places, with both Astrophelle and Mr Slithers on 2 failed death saves at different points in the session (only after the game did the DM reveal that Revivify would have been impossible because of the nature of the place the party were in.)

It made me very happy that Astrophelle got a Good Ending: going on to help her sad vampire friend make her ancient castle feel more lively again, along with Astro's Ghost Girlfriend and Aquatic Girlfriend, and their adopted Arcane Intelligence.

I have learned so much from playing Astrophelle, and it's weird to say goodbye. She was my first real attempt at overcoming ingrained biases against 'feminine' things (strong female character must be MASC!!! else she is WEAK!!!), and it means so much to me that she was able to be Heroic (TM) while also loving deeply and openly, enjoying dancing and reading romance novels, and buying pretty dresses.

She would rather solve problems with cups of tea and a chat than with her sword, but even in direct combat with hostile entities she managed to save so many. Delta, Scarlet, Sky, Lily Petal, Mime, The Butterfly, the aforementioned vampire Aurelia/Ariel...so many characters that would have been killed by other adventurers. And that meant a lot to me too. In a world that feels so hopeless so frequently, it's empowering to be able to play out this fantasy of protecting and healing.

Astro was also my first asexual lesbian player character- the first character to explicitly share my own identity. That was very special as well.

I could say a lot more about how special this campaign and this character are to me, but I'll leave it here. For now, it's nice to have the completed story wrapped up in a pretty bow. Couldn't have asked for a better ending for her.

Gonna run a bit longer than usual as the Dragonwatch, Sky, Jaggaroth, Kin and Shaye fight to take down the Betrayer once and for all!

"If I asked you to run away with me, right now, would you?"

"I wish I could. I wish I was allowed to just be in love."

Astrophelle aroha he wahine. Ko Emily ia, he wairua. Emily he tau haumaru ia, engari Astrophelle aroha rua wāhine.

"Kia ora e hoa."

Today Astrophelle challenged Amadeus to tell the High Sheriff about his role in a recent murder.

Amadeus was pretty annoyed and is unlikely to tell her sensitive information ever again.

(the cherry on top was that she was also hiding something- her fake girlfriend Vanessa, who was hanging out with the party, was actually an escaped changeling assassin from last session.)